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Quaker Oats

An incredible American company turned 140 this
year, one which I doubt many would consider
innovative let alone revolutionary. But in twelve
short years after its founding in 1877, Henry
Crowell’s Quaker Oats company would take America
by storm in a capitalistic blitzkrieg.

Poor Scottish immigrants, and horses, were
considered to be the only consumers of oats in the
mid-1800s. The average American had no inclination
of going near the stuff. This left Crowell with a
demand dilemma after suppliers like himself
started utilizing continuous-processing
techniques. Lo, with his ‘all-roller’ flour mill,
his machines could take in raw outs as input, and
output processed meal, packaged and ready for
shipping in one automatic & continuous flow. But
nobody wanted what he was producing — his
inventories outpaced demand by a factor of two in
1882.

Engineering demand

Crowell innovations turned from machines to
marketing over the next few years, and it’s
genuinely remarkable how he would bend the minds
of the masses to meet the whims of his business.

National advertising wasn’t a concept in the 1880,
but in nine years, the Quaker Oats company would
have invented testimonials, scientific
endorsements, prizes, top-box couponing,
and give-aways. Every tactic in the book, largely,
we owe to this humble oat meal company.

Advanced tactics

On the other side of the marketing spectrum
(in contrast to publicity stunts which Quaker Oats
also pioneered) are strategies like
brand-awareness, trademarks, slogans, and design.
The Quaker Oats company was first to coin all of
these.

At first, Crowell was pushing bulk oat meal just
like the suppliers of canned foods, soap,
cigarettes, and photographic film. Then, he had
the notion of branding his product in a memorable
way, and boxing the oats in convenient 24oz
packs. This winning maneuver was a line of least
expectation for the American consumer and
undoubtedly, paved the way for Crowell’s success.

By 1889, he had solved his demand crisis, invented
a dozen modes of marketing, and was on the path to
becoming among the few successful vertically
integrated companies in the second industrial
revolution.

Minds like mush

Did Crowell’s overstep his ambition? Don’t forget,
Americans genuinely scorned oats up until that
time. It’s fun to entertain the idea that what if
oat meal is no more nutritious than the shipping
paper it comes in, but we eat it, still 140 years
later, because of marketing & nothing more.